


and follow the sun

by satellites (brella)



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 11:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/pseuds/satellites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four lessons each of the boys learned from Nightwing (and one he learned from one of them).</p>
            </blockquote>





	and follow the sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cheeky-eyes](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=cheeky-eyes).



> Written for cheeky-eyes for the YJ Exchange. This was an interesting one to write! DUMB BOYS BEING DUMB. I AM PERPLEXED BY THE ABSENCE OF LADIES.

_  
_“How do you not know how to make a quesadilla?” Garfield exclaims incredulously. “You’re from El Paso, genius!” _  
  
_“Hey, lay off!” Jaime snaps back, his cheeks flushed. “Milagro always made her own and there was, uh, there was an _incident_  in the kitchen once, okay, I was banished!”  _  
  
_“What an idiot,” Garfield guffaws. “What a freaking idiot. I love you, dude.” _  
  
_“ _Vete a la mierda_ ,” Jaime mutters venomously, which only makes Garfield laugh harder. Even Tim has to raise a fist to his mouth and pretend that he’s thinking when, in fact, he’s on the brink of chortling.  _  
  
_“Seriously though!” Garfield continues, giggling. “Aren’t they like, really really easy to make? It’s just cheese and a tortilla! Oh my _gosh_ …” _  
  
_“I’d like to see you try it, _niño_ , then we’ll talk!” Jaime barks.  _  
  
_“Actually, don’t,” Tim interjects. “The countertops are made of polished marble.” _  
  
_Suddenly, they hear feet approaching from the hallway and all turn in unison, trying to force the guilt from their faces when Nightwing comes traipsing around the corner with his arms folded and his eyebrows tetchily furrowed. _  
  
_“It was Blue’s idea!” Garfield shouts, pointing stiffly at Jaime, who starts spluttering in Spanish. _  
  
_“Not that I’m all for keeping odd hours,” Nightwing grits out, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But it is three in the morning, you dweebs. What are you _doing_?”  _  
  
_“Gar wanted a midnight snack,” Tim explains as hurriedly as he can. “But he didn’t wanna go out in the dark by himself—” _  
  
_“Shut up, did too!” _  
  
_“—and we couldn’t find anything to cook, so we figured Blue might know how to make a quesadilla, so we woke him up, but it turns out he doesn’t, so now we’re—” _  
  
_“Wait,” Dick interrupts, raising his hand. “Blue doesn’t know how to make a _quesadilla_?” _  
  
_“Nope,” Tim and Garfield answer in unison. _  
  
_“I’m—” Jaime flummoxes, folding his arms tightly. “ _Cállate_ …” _  
  
_“He won’t stop speaking Spanish at us,” Garfield adds. “I think it means he’s mad.” _  
  
_“Of course I’m mad!” Jaime groans. “You wake me up at the crack of freaking dawn just so you can make fun of me for not knowing how to make a stupid quesadilla!” _  
  
_“Okay, okay, simmer down,” Nightwing tells them all with a sigh, dropping his hands to his side. “I’ll show you idiots how it’s done and then we can _all_  go back to sleep.”  _  
  
_That’s how Jaime Reyes learns how to make a quesadilla. Apparently it’s the only thing that Nightwing can even cook without burning, but he’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, honestly. _  
  
_The four of them sit up until five, eating quesadilla after quesadilla and finishing up Conner’s bottles of blue Gatorade. _  
  
_“If he asks, tell him Wolf stole them,” Nightwing orders. “He’ll totally believe it.” __  
  


* * *

“I don’t want to hit people,” Garfield half-crys, slumped on the training room floor with his arms folded and his head bowed. “I don’t want to _hurt_  people.” _  
_ _  
_“Beast Boy, I know, but you’re going to have to; it’s part of—” Nightwing starts to say gently, but Garfield cuts him off, throwing his arms out and glaring up at him with wide and wet eyes, his face twisted with guilt. _  
  
_“It’s not!” Garfield yelps, his voice cracking. “Hurting people is – it’s not _me_! That’s the people that hurt my mom!”  _  
  
_Nightwing’s expression softens. He steps forward, kneeling down to Garfield’s level, his elbows resting on one raised knee. _  
  
_“Gar,” he whispers, and Garfield sniffles, looking up at him with pitiful, red-edged green eyes. “There’s… the morality of all of this is – _gray_ , at best, but it’s…” He sighs, running his fingers through his hair and holding it back, frowning in thought. “I’m not going to lie and tell you that it’s easy. Or that it’ll always feel like you’re doing the right thing. But think of it this way. You’re only hurting these people to defend others. So that nobody else’s moms ever have to—” _  
  
_He grimaces, in something like pain, and lowers his eyes. Garfield wipes at his nose with the back of his hand, trying to push the tears from his eyes. _  
  
_“I don’t think I’m cut out for this,” he whimpers, his tail swaying. _  
  
_“Garfield Logan, you were a hero from the time I first met you,” Nightwing tells him in earnest, and Garfield’s heart tilts when he remembers first meeting the boy who is now his leader, the boy who had not smiled once in all his time in Qurac, the boy who had helped to save his life. “I mean it. You’re as meant for this as you’ll let yourself be. Figuring out what you believe is part of the gig. You’re growing.” _  
  
_“Growing sucks,” Garfield mumbles, but he grins feebly, his sharp canines snagging on his lower lip. “But – thanks. Thanks, Ro—Nightwing.” _  
  
_“No problem,” Nightwing assures him with a warm and genuine smile. “We all have to do it sooner or later.” _  
  
_He gets to his feet and extends his hand. “Now. Ready to try some kicks?” _  
  
_Garfield takes it. __  
  


* * *

 _  
_Bart likes to run to the Mount Justice beach whenever he can’t sleep. It’s a short dash from the Garricks’, maybe twenty minutes, and he loves the salt spray and the sound of the shifting water, and he loves how the night turns the sand slate-blue. _  
_ _  
_He loves the color and the sound, and he does not miss the ash at all. _  
  
_A month after he’s joined the Team, a week after he’s gone to Artemis Crock’s funeral and blamed himself, he goes sprinting to the same oceanside spot, but, unlike every other night, when he comes to a halt, his shadow is joined by another’s. _  
  
_“Nightwing,” he mutters disbelievingly, staring wide-eyed at the Team leader, whose normally confident posture is slouched and enervated and whose face is haggard behind a pair of black sunglasses. _  
  
_Nightwing jumps when Bart comes bursting to a stop, and that’s when Bart knows that something’s the matter. _  
  
_“You okay, boss-man?” Bart blurts out before he can stop himself. _  
  
_Nightwing lets out a long, long breath; it streams out in a cloud and dissipates against the stars. His hair is matted and unkempt, and there is no color in his cheeks. _  
  
_“Fine, Bart,” he murmurs. “Just tired. Been a long week.” _  
  
_“Yeah,” Bart agrees quietly, cramming his hands into his pockets and turning to face the tide, mirroring Nightwing. “It has been. But hey, least there’s a nice view.” _  
  
_Nightwing lets out a noise through his nose that could pass as laughter. Bart grins to himself in triumph. _  
  
_They ebb into silence for quite some time; Bart doesn’t count the ticks (he and time have become more and more separate lately). At some point, he and Nightwing both decide to sit down, the sand shifting around beneath them. _  
  
_“Listen,” Nightwing says, suddenly, so softly that Bart almost doesn’t hear it. “I know how hard it must be to be so… displaced. But we’re here for you, and—” _  
  
_“No,” Bart contests gently, and, without even thinking on it, he gives Nightwing a rather awkward sideways hug, his arms snaking around Nightwing’s shoulders. “We’re here for _you_ , boss.”  _  
  
_Nightwing swallows, and nods, and Bart thinks (against the sound of a wave crashing) that he hears him say “ _thank you_ ” in a voice so small it could pass for a child’s. __  
  


* * *

 _  
_Tim will not cry. _  
  
_There are indistinct pieces of his parents that still linger in the back of his mind, laughs and pats on the shoulder and his mother’s Chanel perfume, quiet nights in front of lit fireplaces, Christmases that glittered. Sometimes they lose their nebulousness and he can practically taste them, all of the facets that he will never hold again, and that’s when his eyes start to burn. _  
  
_He sits alone in the den, his knees drawn up to his chest, his eyes focused on the smoldering logs in hearth with distant attention. Every bit of him aches and his heart twists like a wound and he wrenches his eyelids closed, biting his lip, forcing the wetness back down inside of him. _  
  
_Alfred had tried to console him, even though Tim had insisted that there was no trouble to begin with. He figures that butlers have a sense for those kinds of things, though, because Alfred had made him cookies and now they have gone stale on the plate he can’t bring himself to touch. _  
  
_His cell phone buzzes and he glances furtively at the lit screen. The orange light from the fire laps against the black surface. _  
  
New message from: GAR  
omg theres a spider the size of like a tangerine under my bed its so wiCKED COOL PLS COME OVER  
  
_He looks away again, sighing through his nose. Just as the screen switches off again, he hears the door shift behind him, and there are footsteps on the rug.  _  
  
_Someone comes to a halt beside the armchair he’s currently perched in. He doesn’t look up. _  
  
_“You okay?” Dick asks quietly. _  
  
_Tim nods his head silently, against every impulse in his body to do the opposite. Dick lets out a breath wearily, and when Tim chances a glance at him, he’s running his hand through his hair. _  
  
_“Bruce might be big on the whole ‘lying’ thing,” Dick says, “but that doesn’t mean you have to be.” _  
  
_“Not lying,” Tim mumbles, ducking his eyes again. “I’m okay. Really.” _  
  
_Dick hums enigmatically, putting his hands in his pockets. After a moment’s contemplation, he sits on the armrest of the chair, and Tim finally looks up to meet his eye. Dick is watching him with something close to pity, or maybe empathy, his sunglasses absent. _  
  
_“You know,” he begins, keeping his gaze intently. “When Bruce first let me on board, I wanted to be just like him. Whole strong, silent type thing. I wanted to learn how to put all of my problems behind me so that they wouldn’t keep me up all night crying.” _  
  
_“I’m not—” Tim starts to protest, but Dick puts a hand up. _  
  
_“But I learned something, after a while,” he continues, and something in his voice softens. “And that’s that caring is always better. It makes you a better person. It doesn’t make things easy, but it makes you human, and that’s an asset you’ll always need, even if you have to sacrifice whatever cap you think you have on your emotions.” _  
  
_“I don’t have anything to put a cap _on_ , Dick,” Tim insists, a bit hotly. “I’m fine. Just – I wish people would leave me alone.”  _  
  
_“Uh, then you’re living in the wrong drafty old mansion, sorry to say,” Dick quips. “Look, I’m not gonna lie and say I didn’t come in here because Alf told me to, because he totally did, because he cares. We all do. Bruce included, even though he acts like a stiff.” _  
  
_Tim bites his lip, glancing away. Dick’s shoulders loosen and he exhales pensively. _  
  
_“You’re allowed to miss people,” Dick murmurs. “And you’re allowed to be upset when they’re not here anymore. You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to be reckless. You’re allowed to drive yourself insane if you want to. You don’t need to repress any of that just because you think it’ll make things easier, because it won’t. It’ll just make you jaded. We don’t need jaded heroes in the world anymore. So, if you need to cry, do it. No judgment. Unless Wally’s around, but he usually gets past it within five or so sec—” _  
  
_Before Dick can finish, Tim has thrown caution to the winds and tossed his arms clumsily around Dick’s torso, burying his face in the older boy’s shirt and letting out a single, racking sniffle. Dick immediately reciprocates, rubbing circles onto Tim’s back, and Tim cries harder and harder and harder until there’s nothing left inside of him to miss his parents. _  
  
_“It’s okay,” Dick tells him. “It’s okay, little bro. It’s okay.” _  
  
_The next day, Tim goes over to Garfield’s house. He speaks out his story at the bottom of his breath and he takes his mask off and he tells him his name, and at the end of it all, Garfield just smiles, and punches him lightly on the shoulder, tail flicking at the air, and says, “Secret’s safe with me, 007.” __  
  
And Tim never regrets it.

**Author's Note:**

> _let's follow the sun until the shadows fade / cross the desert till we find our place / think of where you're going, not where you've come from / just lift your eyes and follow the sun_


End file.
